Incidentally, Alexham has posted a reference to Archbishop Burke’s paper from Periodica de Re Canonica here. He makes the case for the reading I’ve advocated here, but far more persuasively than I have!

What I’m not comfortable with is the suggestion that the good of denial is in question, i.e., that it’s up for discussion.

OK. I think at this point that you are right that this, and seemingly only this, is where we may disagree. (It is also a distinct and new point that you and I haven’t yet discussed).

In my understanding the enforcement of positive law – that is, taking action to prevent another’s act or punish another for acting in a certain way (stipulating that the on-the-spot case of a priest or EUM denying Communion is a case of the former not the latter) – is always a matter of prudential judgement. Now (and I’ve written a number of times on this in other places) “prudential judgement” is not code which means there is no right answer in a particular case. It just means that we cannot say categorically that in all cases the positive requirements of the law should be enforced in a particular way, or even enforced at all. (Reference Veritatis Splendour on the universality of negative precepts and the circumstance-dependence of positive precepts: “…what must be done in any given situation depends on the circumstances, not all of which can be foreseen; on the other hand there are kinds of behaviour which can never, in any situation, be a proper response — a response which is in conformity with the dignity of the person.”). It is not intrinsically evil to fail to enforce or carry out a positive precept of the law in a particular way: it can be conclusively evil in particular circumstances, indeed in many or most circumstances; but it cannot be categorically evil in all circumstances.

Given that, while my sympathies do lie in the direction of denial of Communion in the case of blatantly abortion-supporting politicians, I have some inclination to leave it to the local ordinary to make the determination. I think local ordinaries should write letters directing that it be so, but I am less sympathetic to the idea that EUM’s and Priests should in general (though there may be specific cases) take matters of Church governance – the enforcement of Canon law – like this into their own hands. Taking the law into my own hands, though justifiable in very rare cases, is a very different matter – even when I am right about the requirements of the law – from thinking that the Bishop or the Pope should enforce the law in a particular way.

First of all, mea maxima culpa. My tone has been on several occasions far less than charitable, and whatever my reasons for taking such a tone, it was neither befitting nor helpful to the discussion. I hope you’ll accept my sincere apologies.

With that out of the way, I think we may be closer to agreement than either of us realize. It’s not the good of the putative communicant that I sought to characterize as external; like you, I fully agree that his good is central and intrinsic to the matter under discussion. What I consider external and extraneous is the consideration of whether or not the good is served by denial of communion. I fail to see how the good could not be served by preventing a person who persists in manifest grave sin from committing the sins of sacrilege and scandal.

This may (or may not) be rooted in the previous back-and-forth about whether denial of communion under can. 915 is rightly considered “punishment.” I maintain that it is not, for the following reasons:

     * Cardinal Ratzinger, the then-prefect of the CDF, and Archbishop Burke, a renowned canonist, are in agreement on the point;
     * The canon’s context in the Code of Canon Law;
     * The canon’s distinction between those who have been punished by canonical penalties and others who have not; and
     * It is not ordered toward correcting the offender and redressing his wrong, required elements of punishment as you have correctly stated.

To expand, denial of communion under can. 915 in this particular case is not meant, in my view, to make the offender aware of the serious sinfulness of his abortion advocacy and to move him toward repentance. It is meant solely to prevent the commission of a further sin namely, the sacrilege and scandal that would be constituted by the reception of communion by one who persistently and publicly advocates abortion. This ordering is primarily defensive, not punitive.

Therefore, I’m entirely in agreement that when discussing the denial of communion to persistently pro-abortion politicians, we should frame the issue in terms of the good of the offender himself: denial will prevent him from committing sacrilege and scandal, and thus redound to his good. What I’m not comfortable with is the suggestion that the good of denial is in question, i.e., that it’s up for discussion.

I am at somewhat of a loss as to how to respond to this repeated assertion. (“Yeah, but your mother wears Army boots” or something?)

Hence, to insist upon external consideration…

I don’t know where you are getting “external” from my characterization of the good of the putative communicant as central. It isn’t an external consideration: it is intrinsic (or “central”) to moral consideration of how to act, and in the case of your self-defense example it gives rise to the requirements I mentioned.

…sounds like a convenient excuse to do nothing.

Here is what appears to be the nub of the matter for you. Despite the explicit disclamer of any particular conclusion about specific implicated action in my very first comment in the thread, you are concerned that someone will jump to the conclusion “therefore nothing need be done”.

Usually when I agree with someone on the substance of the matter but I am concerned that others may jump to what I believe to be a wrong conclusion, I’ll say something like “I agree with you on the substance of the matter, but we have to be careful not to jump to the wrong conclusion”.

OF COURSE one must only use proportionate means to defend against an unjust aggressor. And OF COURSE one had better not intend an evil end such as the death of the attacker. To suggest that I meant otherwise is an incredibly uncharitable distortion of my argument. In the use of proportionate means to defend against an attack, the good of the attacker is innately respected. No separate consideration of that good is necessary. Such superfluous consideration is what I meant by hand-wringing.

I apologize if I’ve misrepresented your argument. But you’ve been distorting mine all along. I do not now, nor have I ever disdained the requirements of Christian charity. I have stated repeatedly that the denial of communion is primarily ordered to defending the dignity of the sacrament, the Church, and the consciences of the faithful. Such a defense by its very nature respects the good of the offender who is denied communion, by preventing him from further offense. Hence, to insist upon external consideration of “is this really the best thing for him?” is superfluous and sounds like a convenient excuse to do nothing. I have repeated again and again that the primary consideration of the offender’s good belongs in the context of his bishop’s decision whether or not to impose a penal sanction upon him, as outlined in canon law. Denial of the sacrament according to can. 915 is defensive, and while indeed ordered toward the good of the offender by its very nature, need not concern itself with an extended consideration of that. Indeed, its requirements are clear and concise: those who are publicly unworthy to receive (by virtue of a declared or imposed excommunication, interdict, or notorious public sin) must not be admitted to communion. It’s really quite black and white.

If you are engaging in self defense your choice of means had better take into consideration as a primary matter the good of the aggressor who is the target of your counter-attack: the means you choose had better be proportionate to the end of stopping the attack, and at least according to that infamous hand-wringer Aquinas you’d better not intend to kill the attacker as a means or an end.

But a discussion in which the objective requirements of Christian charity are disdained as “hand wringing” isn’t the sort of discussion that can hold my interest. So thanks for the conversation, and all y’all have a nice day.

Another example: if I am confronted by an unjust aggressor, my decision to defend myself against his unjust aggression is not motivated by my concern for his good. My motivation is to prevent harm to myself. If I succeed in preventing that harm, then I have at the same time benefitted the aggressor by thwarting his attempt to commit a greater sin. But the suggestion that defensive measures require any measure of hand-wringing about the good of the offender is just plain silly. The good is served by preventing further offense. Full stop.

I think I’m pretty much on the same page as you are, MZ, when it comes to denial of Communion as interdict. It looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, and quacks like a duck. For whatever reason there have been non-magisterial rumblings from Bishops that it “isn’t strictly speaking a punishment”. I am sure that is true, depending on particularly how we strictly speak, and one might argue that the same could be said of excommunication depending on the particular concept of “punishment” which is being denied. But that wouldn’t mean that the denial of Communion was not about correcting the guilty party, redressing his wrong, and preventing him from doing further wrong.

And when I’ve used the term “punishment” in these discussions what I have meant by it is “correcting the guilty party, redressing his wrong, and preventing him from doing further wrong”.

I personally don’t see what’s the problem of placing someone under interdict. Rhetorical support for legalized abortion doesn’t stirke me as prima facie evidence of lack of fitness like a drunk approaching communion or a person scantily dressed. Judging when rhetorical support merits punishment seems to be a pastoral judgement. And I do think such judgement should be rendered freely. Archbishop O’Conner watching and advising Cuomo and Ferraro seems to be a better exercise of the pastoral office than an amibigious standard of rhetorical support. And considering that Abp Burke has been in the practice of notifying politicians that they can’t receive communion, I have difficulty seeing how it isn’t an interdict. But, I’m no canon lawyer.

If you go back and reread my original comment in this thread – the one that you said missed the point – (and leaving aside irrelevant semantic quibbles over the word “punishment”), I wrote that the centrally legitimate purpose of denying Communion is to correct the putative communicant and redress the particular wrong he is doing. To this we might add “and prevent him from doing further wrong”, which is one of the functions of (e.g.) incarceration as punishment. You don’t seem to disagree, although your last paragraph in your 1:41 post might be taken as equivocal on the matter. I’ve never denied the relevance of other factors, I’ve just stated (repeatedly) that the good of the communicant himself is central and cannot be made peripheral. I don’t at this point have any idea what specific thing I’ve said that you object to.

To repeat once more: the consideration of the good of the sinner’s soul is entirely appropriate in the context of whether he should be punished with a canonical penalty. The denial of communion, however, brings a broader set of factors into play.